Oh, sister, it's not easy for nuns to retire

LEOMINSTER -- Even nuns have to retire at some point, and when they do, they often end up somewhere like the Presentation Health Care Center on Church Street.

The retirement home has been in operation for nearly 30 years and currently houses 17 women. Each has her own room, access to an on-site chapel, beauty parlor, and daily activities like bingo and movie matinees.

However, dwindling retirement savings and fewer numbers of people entering into the religious community have left many rest homes like Presentation Health Care Center in a precarious fiscal position.

"As far as not meeting present financial obligations, we are not at that point yet," said Sister Brian Elizabeth Barnicle, who works in the business office in Leominster.

Administrator Mary Ann Seliga shows off the chapel at Sisters of the Presentation, a retirement home for nuns in Leominster. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / Ashley Green (Ashley Green)

"I'm sure somewhere down the road, as the active members continue to decrease, which means the income coming into the community becomes smaller, there will be a point where, as a congregation, we'll have to take a serious look at things. I would say that we're not struggling as some smaller communities are to try to meet the day to day bills."

In fact, only 45 of the 550 communities surveyed by the National Religious Retirement Office in 2016 were viewed as adequately funded for retirement.

While members of religious orders have traditionally received small stipends over the years to meet their daily needs, much of the surplus they generated was typically reinvested into ministries and education of younger church members, leading to hundreds of religious communities without retirement savings.

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"All their money just went into education or their own vocations, with very little used for their own retirement," Worcester Diocese spokesman Ray Delisle said. "They just assumed there would continue to be more and more sisters coming in."

Conversely, average elderly health care costs continue to rise. The Retirement Fund for Religious, a non-profit that raises money for religious retirement, estimates that the average annual cost of care for individuals past the age of 70 is $41,214.

Much of Presentation Health Care Center's survival can be credited to the larger Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary community, to which they belong. As Barnicle explained, the community's New Windsor-based administrative offices in New York are able to handle most of the costs incurred in Leominster.

Though the number of women becoming nuns may not be at the same levels convents have seen in previous decades, the number of retired women moving into Presentation Health Care Center is remaining stable.

"We've got a full house and that's been for about a year now. The sisters don't want to live far away, they want to come back and be a little closer to home," said Sister Maureen Hickey, the nurse administrator for Leominster's rest home.

Sister Joan Mulcahy, former St. Bernard's Headmaster, enjoys a copy of the Sentinel & Enterprise at Sisters of the Presentation, a retirement home for nuns in Leominster on Wednesday, April 5, 2017. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE / Ashley Green (Ashley Green)

"We're full and I'm grateful because it takes advantage of what we can offer them."

The facilities of Presentation Health Care Center are split up into two residential floors, with more independent women living on the building's first level and those requiring more constant assistance living on the second.

While the ages of women arriving at the health care center tend to vary, 10 of the 17 women living in Leominster are in their 80s, while six are in their 90s, and one is in her 70s. A majority are originally from the Leominster and Fitchburg area, but there are others from communities throughout the state and the rest of New England.

As Barnicle explained, retiring doesn't mean that a woman is actually giving up on being a nun. Instead, they are retiring from the work they did throughout the majority of their life, typically some form of teaching, social work, or nursing.

"When we use the term retired, it basically would mean that you've retired from that active ministry. But you never really retire," she said.

Indeed, many of Leominster's residents continue on with the work they devoted much of their life to, including Sister Catherine Hannigan, who is still working through a spiritual direction ministry she started in Boston 25 years ago.

"It seemed time to come back home, so I'm here, but I continue to work there part time as well as doing retreat work," she said.

Though Presentation Health Care Center does bear similarities to most secular retirement homes, being entirely populated by nuns does create some stark differences.

Unlike the elderly residents for most retirement homes, the women living in Leominster do not have children or grandchildren of their own to visit them. Some have grown nieces and nephew who visit, but what most of the nuns look forward to are the regular interactions they have with the children attending the neighboring St. Leo School.

"I think it's something that the sisters look forward to because most of us started out teaching and we've worked with children all our lives. It's good for them to see these little kids come over," Seliga said.

Another major difference between Presentation Health Care Center and other facilities is that many of the residents have actually known each other, and in some cases already lived together, for many years.

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